Please Stop With the Bodily Fluids. Please.

My kids are what I would call “surprise pukers”. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what sets them off, and there is very little warning that it’s about to happen. We recently had to train B.G. in what to do when she felt it coming on, because her default reaction was to come over to tell me all about how bad she felt, which led to a couple of incidents where I was left with puke literally soaking my pants and even my underwear. Yuckity-yuck-double-yuck. One of the incidents happened on the front porch of her friend’s house when we were dropping her off for a sleepover. – they had to hose down the porch. (“Really, she was fine five minutes ago. Guess we’ll be heading home… So sorry!”) I was so grateful that it didn’t happen inside the house five minutes after we’d driven off. The second pants-soaking incident was at a friend’s birthday party, where I vainly attempted to contain the disgusting waterfall in the plastic plate that held my supper. Not surprisingly this method was not effective.

If you think you’re going to be sick, we told her, find grass, a toilet, or a garbage can. DO NOT TELL MOMMY YOU’RE GOING TO BE SICK. Grass. Toilet. Garbage can.

Just a few days after the last B.G. incident, I was with Bonhomme at the Home Depot. He was sick in line at the cash, right as it was our turn to check out. I don’t know what the cashier thought when I asked her for a bag in case he was sick again, and then had her go ahead and ring my items through. Every time I leave the house now I have a couple of plastic bags hanging out of my pockets so that I can easily whip them out as needed.

How are the kids after these incidents, you ask? I might be a bit more sympathetic if they weren’t complaining about being hungry and wanting something to eat before I’ve even changed out of my vomit-covered pants.